UCD to investigate reports of 'revenge porn' ring involving up to 200 male students

Male students at UCD, the largest university in Ireland, involved in a group chat on Facebook are sharing explicit images and rating women with whom they have had sex, according to the campus newspaper The College Tribune.

Understood to be members of the Agricultural Studies department, the students’ alleged activities are the second high-profile controversy to hit the Belfield site after a private Facebook group, also allegedly involving Ag Science students, was exposed last March.

A UCD spokesman has said the university will launch a full investigation into the fresh allegations. The Students’ Union echoed that decision, with the president Marcus O’Halloran – who the College Tribune reports was one of the members the ‘Girls I’d shift if I was tipsy’ group uncovered last year – saying the student body would work to eradicate so-called lad culture.

According to the SU president, any privacy breaches will passed on to the authorities. No evidence has yet been found linking the students to ‘revenge porn’, an online phenomenon that sees private images uploaded to the Internet that has become illegal in many countries but on which the Gardaí have limited scope to act.

The student body has also claimed that sexual consent classes and social media training for members of the college community would soon be implemented, a move that Trinity College Dublin announced would be introduced as a mandatory workshop for its residents last week.